hello 2011, what do you bring?

well that time has come again to begin a new year. i'm excited, but a little apprehensive to be completely honest. there is always so much uncertainty....even though i trust that everything will all work and out and be great, there is always that fear in the back of your mind.  though i am usually a lover of change, lately i have been a little shy, though i have no real reason to be. i think maybe it is largely due to overwhelming amounts of stress.....

tonight i shall spend the evening with my man, doing nothing but enjoying each other, i am rather excited since this is a new opportunity for us. and we are loving it.  i am sure that this new year will bring us many of these great opportunities since he is now a resident of the desert once again.  last night we went on a rare date night. it was glorious, even in all of its goofy simplicity.  he is a very sweet and thoughtful guy. i am very lucky that is for sure.

though i am very unsure about what 2011 will bring us, i do know that we will make it through it and enjoy most of every minute of it. i have not hated 2010, though there was much unpleasantness in parts of it, there were also so many wonderful things about it.  but 2011 is looking much better and brighter....so far anyway lol.

i am excited about the potential for great things in 2011, there will be much opportunity to grow in business and hopefully better our futures.  it will not be an easy road that is for sure, since there will be much financial burden due to our current situation, but i think it will prove to be a great learning opportunity and many life lessons will be shared and hopefully overcome.

i'm not one for new years resolutions usually, i feel that you don't need a calender change over to a new year to have change for the better, but i do have a few things that i would like to improve on, and the first of the year seems like a great place to start those things.  some of these things include, better blogging, a positive attitude (which is proving to be a difficult one amongst the stress and annoyances of late, esp. the upcoming wedding situations which i don't want to deal with cause i'm feeling like its all very much unfair at the moment even though i shouldn't), more work, better saving, more learning, going to school and completing classes, finding new ways to love, spending lots of time with my man,  keeping things very clean and organized, being better about trusting in the Lord and finding new ways to let things go.  i'm sure there will be many more things i find to work on, but those are standing out most in my mind at the moment.  i would say i should also work on building better relationships with others, but right now that is a issue that has left me rather burned or scarred and i'm not particularly interested in that right at this moment, maybe with a little bit of time i will feel like that is doable again. 

i hope everyone has a safe and happy new year, i hope new opportunities will come, dreams will come true, much love will find you, and that there will be more happiness than tears.  i love the people in my life and cannot wait to share the new adventures of a new year with all of those who are sharing this crazy journey that is life.

Happy New Year everyone! 2011 here we come!

matching merry christmas

here are a few photos of me and my grinch! oh how i love him and his goofy self :)

Holiday Craziness

okay so i apologized for my lack of postings before with the full intention of having time to update said blog.....yeah well we know how well that worked out for me. ha. december is such a crazy month with all of the holdiay things going on, and on top of all of it i had work, made an emergency trip to the good ol birmingham, moved josh into his new place, wrapped 3000 gifts, baby sat my favorite kiddos, stressed out over everything under the sun, and then came Christmas. so let's recap my last month-i will try to keep it short, but no promises can be made as i have a lot to say about this crazy month.

so at the very beginning of the month, my love was struggling with the decision to keep playing football yet again, he's never been in love with it like soccer, and he has wanted several times to give it up and come home, but he always toughs it out and stays, convincing himself that he'll love it with all manner of creative excuses, some of which made me laugh. but this time he decided he really was going to come home. i will let you imagine how that went down........so anyway after all of THAT was over, dad and avery and i drove our buns to birmingham to pick up the man. somehow we managed to cram an entire dorm into a mini van and a g35. we are packing geniuses.  the trip was A BLAST (minus the ridiculously long 15 hour days of driving), avery and dad were hysterical, and then adding josh to the mix made it even funnier.  we ate lots of yummy southern food, said goodbye to our friends, nearly died at the vulcan from slipping on ice, froze our buns off, laughed until we cried, and of course drove until our butts were numb from sitting so long.  all in all, it was great, despite the less than lovely circumstances under which we were coming.  i will definitely miss birmingham and the new friends i made there, but we have decided we will come back to visit often (and after the little icy episode, i think i'm rather grateful that i won't be living there after all.....) once we got joshua home we moved him into his dad's with all of his stuff and he settled in quite quickly.  we have had a blast since he's been home-minus the 30 minute drive part and me having to always find a car since josh is currently using mine full time.

the week before christmas was chaos...as usual.  it was mostly enjoyable though we had some fairly large stressors in there.... on sunday we went to church and had lunch with bachan (josh's grandmother on his dad's side) and then we went to zoolights with sammy and his girlfriend jen. it was interesting. and the weather was nice, like 70 degrees nice lol. on monday we had dinner with Chris and Jihae and the kiddos. love em. they are superly awesome, made us feel a little better about our current situation too, which is always nice when you have good peeps to talk to. they are great siblings even though they are not officially mine. the rest of the week was just busy with cookies and family and people visiting and work and present wrapping. Christmas eve josh and i dressed in matching Grinch shirts for our family parties, first his dad's and then my mom's.  Christmas day we ditched the shirts and kindly wore nice church clothes, i'm bummed i don't have a picture tho because we did look rather dashing. Christmas morning was great with my family and then we headed off to the watson family christmas. it was good, but we were super tired and stressed after, so it was nice to be able to just relax.  i'm glad the kiddos liked their gifts tho, they are super fun to shop for and so hard not to spoil! 
oh and i almost forgot, joshua bear bought us a red wii for christmas, it is pretty cool if i do say so myself. it is currently living in his room at his dad's as i have no house or place to put it and we already have a wii in the family room, but one day it will have a place of its own when i have a place of my own....one day.

things seem to be winding down a bit, which is good, i'm looking forward to the new year even though it feels like it is coming too quickly.  i am ready to leave this year behind though. it has been nice, but a little too stressful lately and i'm ready to move past that.  however, i am not looking forward to the next 12 weddings we must attend, and NO that is not an exaggeration.  we know 9 couples who have been engaged in the last week and a half and we already had 3 other weddings to attend starting next week. so blah on all that. even though i should be congratulating all of them. in light of our current situation and the fact that once again we will have to wait because people are having issues and the fact that they are in complete control of the situation i'm rather bah humbug about anyone else getting married. i shouldn't be, but i am. especially those who have dated approximately 6 months and are getting married in 5 or 6 months. we know 4 of those. they seem slightly unfair. tho that is just probably my bad attitude talking since EVERYTHING seems rather unfair at the moment.  hopefully things will be brighter soon.

2 years

Yes, I do realize that this is december 13th and this post is 3 weeks late, but it has been a little crazy- so this post is dedicated to my love. On december 1st we officially hit the 2 year mark. And its kinda unbelievable to be honest! This has certainly been a crazy few years with all sorts of ups and downs. But they have all been so worth it! He is definitely pretty awesome to have such an awesome man. I am so very lucky to have him in my life, still don't know how I got him, but I love that I do :) thank you joshua zahn for an awesome two years, and I can't wait for many many more! I love you!

december is here, and nearly gone.

i super apologize for my lack of postings. to say the last week has been chaotic is an understatement.  you have no idea. i don't think i've ever been more stressed, emotional, or just plain freaked out ever in my life. i'm rather suckish to be around, the bubbly christmas spirit is not with me this week, but i know it will be back soon.  i have several things i would like to share, but they each are entirely different subjects so i think it would be best to follow up this post with several others so as not to be a jumbled confused mess! so i will be back....um shortly i hope! after i just finish a chaotic mess of paperwork! xoxo

Christmas here we come!

Yes i know it's only the day after thanksgiving....well technically it's 2 days now since this is after midnight, but don't get technical with me, i don't like it-i know it's still early, but i'm so ready to decorate the house and tree and wrap presents and bake christmasy things and do a million crafts and wear sweaters and drink hot cocoa and watch christmasy movies. and listen to christmas music-which i have already been secretly doing for about a week now-it makes me feel warm and fuzzy and i happen to like it-i pulled out all of my christmas music for the piano too-it is my favorite music to play by far!  i can't wait to have my own place to decorate next year! i have so many cool things that i keep finding on clearance or am inheriting from others and i am SO ready to have a place to show them off!  next year better come quick!
thanksgiving was good-we had a tiny group of 25 this year, so everything was ready wayyyy earlier than normal, but it was kinda nice cause we had lots of time to just chill and be. i was definitely ready for everyone to go home by 2 though lol. i know i'm such a party pooper, but it's just too much comotion for me, i love my family, but i can only do so much!  small doses is better for my sanity. i even got to webcam with josh for like an hour and a half in the evening and we talked on the phone while he was shopping in walmart-the booger bought something while he was on the phone with me and said it was a "perfect christmas present" so i am curious to see what he found! he is so very sweet, but it sounded mildly suspicious when he stopped mid sentence while talking on the phone, laughed and said, "babe i just found your christmas present, i'll call you in a sec after i buy it!" i think i might want to be mildly afraid. but i love him so i'm sure it will be awesome whatever it is!
today we decided to be super lazy and instead of keeping with the tradition of baking christmas goodies the day after thanksgiving, we instead watched a million episodes of criminal minds and late in the afternoon we ventured out to hobby lobby (yes, it was glorious) and found some super cool dealios and awesome fun things that i would just love to buy. i refrained however and only spent $20.00- i was a good girl! i bought some to die for wrapping paper that was $3 and i found these super cute letter pictures on clearance and bought them mostly for a wedding reception (yes it's early, and yes we're unofficial, but i feel gathering small things that have dual purpose is not criminal and a very good use of budgeting :) ) they hang from a ribbon and spell out "xoxo" and they are super uber cute and i love them, and they look SUPER awesome above my little photo collage of the man and i-by photo collage i mean the 4 pictures ever printed of the two of us, a birthday card, his valentines poem to me and several inspirational quotes bahahah probably need to get working on more pictures of the two of us-we royally suck at taking pictures of the two of us anywhere!
tomorrow we shall venture out to do our annual saturday christmas shopping-tracy, mom and i go every year and it is always a fun adventure-i will miss it next year when i can't come home, and this year we won't do quite so much since tracy has been so sick and uncomfortable-i feel so bad for her! hopefully the doctors can fix her soon so we can get her back in tip top shopping shape! and i think tomorrow i might be a sweet girlfriend and bake some goodies to send to the dorm for the man and jesse-maybe-if i'm feeling super crafty and house wifeish-which i may not since i made homemade rolls all by myself the other day for everyone to devour and leave me no leftovers-cool peeps-but i guess it is a compliment since they could have hated them and not eaten any! :) here's to happy shopping!

So i guess i'm 20 now?

Sunday was my birthday- a rather odd day, birthdays are usually odd to me. it was an okay day as far as birthday's go-other than the fact that i spent most of the day cleaning the house in preparation for thanksgiving, which is now 2 days away!  we had cheesecake at gramma's and i opened my family's gifts-they were very sweet! and after church was over i got to webcam with josh which greatly improved my day because i was feeling rather down about it-he always knows how to make me laugh! he even sent me a cute little video of him singing happy birthday! it was very sweet! and so many friends wished me a happy birthday! i am excited to actually spend a birthday with him next year though and leia has already informed me that we will all need to celebrate together-i am looking forward to it! should be fun! and now i must go clean some more, because mom is stressing out about thanksgiving now lol. tracy and james will be here tomorrow, and i think i'm going to try making some homemade rolls cause i hate the nasty frozen ones! hopefully this is a wonderful thanksgiving for everyone-i'm looking forward to it, but it certainly is not my favorite holiday of all!  i'm sure i will have an update after the big turkey day is over, but for now i'm done typing cause i just had like a million posts and my hands are tired lol!

Birmingham Surprise Trip Day 5

Tuesday-the dreaded day of leaving. lol. i always hate leaving, and i truly have fallen in love with birmingham, so it makes it even harder to leave cause i've made friends there AND my man is there-it makes me want to stay! in the morning joshua had early practice, so i took myself to startbucks and watched the rain-it was more like a hurricane than beautiful peaceful rain and i had NO jacket and NO umbrella-and i was supposed to WALK to Snoozy's Bookstore up the street a half mile to meet my love after practice.......ugh lol, when it finally slowed down enough that i wouldn't get completely drenched and soaked i headed up the street, only to find joshua's car already in the parking lot-and he was an hour and a half early. i felt so terrible, so i went inside to look for him but couldn't find him anywhere-and my phone battery died that morning cause i forgot my charger......glorious. so i wandered the store cause i wanted to get some christmas presents there and about ten minutes later josh comes in and laughs because as i headed up the street, he headed down the street over to find me in the starbucks and then walked all the way back around to the bookstore hoping i would be there since he couldn't call me-oops lol. he got rained out of practice so he had been there a good half hour waiting out the rain too! dang rain! we did lots of shopping and spent too much money probably, but it will be worth it come christmas! after all of our shopping we went back to the dorm and had leftover casserole for lunch and watched some tv and then i helped jesse with his history paper! then josh remembered he had a video game waiting for him at the mall so he took me to see the mall and get the game-it was a fun little date! then shortly after i had to leave :( so he drove me to the airport and i didn't cry this time thank goodness-and walked inside to check my 2 bags, cause i somehow ended up leaving with twice as much as i brought lol. i got through ticketing quickly, but i discovered that the line for security check point was to the food courts...which means nothing to you if you've never been in the birmingham airport but it was LONG. and to my dismay i found that my flight was not at 4 like i thought, but instead at 315, and it was 245. i thought i was really gonna cry, but somehow i made it through the ridiculous line in only 10 minutes, and got to the gate only to learn that the flight was delayed a good half hour probably-such a bummer :( but at least i made it! i ended up stuck next to a lady who talked my ear off all the way to tennessee, through the layover in nashville, and all the way back to phoenix-i was more than happy to be off of that plane, but i was wishing i was touching down in bham again and not in phoenix lol. though my family came to get me and we all went out for wings, so it wasn't too totally terrible, and plus i was super hungry by then cause i'd had casserole a good 8 hours before and a bag of tiny peanuts on the plane-yuck. it was such a good trip tho and i'm SO so glad i got so much time with my boy! he even surprised me with an early birthday gift- a shirt -before i left! one he let me pick in snoozy's as a birthday present :) it is an awesome long sleeve with the blazer logo on the front and down the sleeve-i love it and i wear it often, he's the best! and he comes home in 4 weeks! SO excited!

Birmingham Surprise Trip Day 4

i think that Monday may have been the best day of the whole trip, even though it meant that i only had a half day left with my man. we met up rather early, instead of sleeping the whole day away and had some breakfast, then we decided that we were gonna go back to the Birmingham Zoo, just the two of us and spend as much time as we wanted! i only had my white long sleeve shirt this day because i'd worn all of my others, and wouldn't you know it-it was supposed to rain ALL day-thank goodness it was only a light sprinkle and that i had a black jacket to wear over! it had rained heavy early in the morning but it just continued to lightly sprinkle from like 11 to 3! we got to the zoo a little after 11 and there was NO ONE there. literally. we decided to hit all of the exhibits cause we had more time this time, and when we went to the "barn" which is the petting zoo, the girl inside said we were the first visitors they had seen all day! crazy! but we loved it cause there was no one and we could spend as much time as we wanted! i have no pictures of the two of us of course, but i do have quite a few of joshua playing with the animals! we walked the entire zoo and even got lost trying to find the "predator zone", but eventually we found it, but of course everyone was indoors because of the rain! several animals did make a quick appearance, so that was nice! and the lion came out twice and gave us several loud roars! josh really wanted to see the tigers but they were sleeping inside and never came out :( such a bummer! but we had SO much fun together! it was one of THE best dates we have ever had! and we decided that in december for our 2 years we will go to the Phoenix Zoo cause the weather will be gorgeous! and i just found out yesterday that they actually have koalas for a limited time til march! hooray!!!! joshua made me laugh the entire day with all of his funny voices and comments about the animals! the best one nearly killed me cause i couldn't breathe due to the fact that i was laughing so hard! towards the end of our day in the zoo we went to the reptile exhibits-it was a warm and toasty building so i appreciated it! the desert tortoise exhibit made us both laugh because they have like a jungle scene painted on the wall, a rock, a tortoise and a bunch of wood chips for the ground-ummmmm yeah lol guess they've never seen a REAL desert tortoise in its habitat! anyways so we oohed and aahed at the pythons and lizards etc, then we came to the komodo dragon room. when we went on saturday it was sleeping, but this day it was wide awake and running around its little home, we watched cause we thought it was way cool since we haven't seen one very active before, and it passes in front of us on it's way to the other side of its large cage, and just as it passes in front of joshua it totally craps right in the middle of the exhibit, and as if it wasn't goofy and funny enough, without any hesitation josh turns and says, "well, i can check that off my life list now...." and walks into the other room without even looking back. i nearly DIED it was so funny-it was so totally unexpected and random for him to say, but i loved it-he is such a funny man! and so quick with his humor! gotta love the boy! after the zoo we went to Moe's- it is delish. you should go there too. i always eat too much there, but it is just so yummy! not super cheap, but super yummy so it's worth the indulgence at least once a week i think-i know it will be a regular spot for the joshmeister and i. after our delicious lunch (at 3pm lol) we went to the store to get all of the things i needed to make enchilada casserole (josh's favorite-and now jesse's too lol) and ooey gooey bars (another favorite of the boys). i ended up making 3 casseroles (yes full 9x13 casseroles) and 3 ooey gooey bars (yes also 9x13 pans). i was SO tired and hot after spending forever in the kitchen! but the boys were helpful and it turned out yummy! we had lots of fun eating it together! and then the boys each whisked their own pans off to their fridges for leftovers so no one else in the dorm could steal it lol. jesse called on my birthday and told me to come back and make more cause he was out-and that i should move soon so i can cook more often :) silly boys-but they do love a home cooked meal! after dinner we all decided to watch a movie and i did some of joshua's laundry! and then we decided to have our ooey gooey bars for dessert and made ourselves miserable with all of the sweetness!

Birmingham Surprise Trip Day 3

Sunday was a rather lazy day of the vacation, Josh and i met up and had the left over Krispy Kreme's for breakfast, then we left to meet gramma and grampa but they had to cancel cause the weather was getting bad and they wanted to make sure everything was packed up so they could leave early in the morning. so josh and i went shopping at TJ Maxx and a few other places nearby and then we went to have some lunch, just the two of us :) it was wonderful! and so fun to have a date! after lunch we puttered around town some more wasting time til Josh had to go to practice!  we decided i should stay downtown, but everything was closing and i can't stay in his dorm without him, so i called leia and she and i went shopping and cleaned trey's apartment while they were at practice-well, we more like cleaned the clothes off the floor and then entertained ourselves watching cake boss and the food network-which was incredibly dumb cause we were both starving! after 4 and a half hours the boys were finally done! joshua and i decided to have some hungry howie's and rent another movie-this time it was Date Night with Steve Carrell-it was cute, not our favorite, but cute! then he and Jesse played some more video games while i made the shopping list for the next day's feast!

Birmingham Surprise Trip Day 2

On saturday Joshua and I went to eat some breakfast, then we just chilled for a bit and watched some tv til lunch time! We met gramma and grampa at Jim N Nicks-it is rather delicious and could put you in a food coma for sure-if you ever go to birmingham, or come to see me when i live there, we most certainly will be going! i had a HUGE, and i mean HUGE loaded baked potato with delicious bbq pork. the potato was like 4 regular potatoes combined, and i ordered the small!!! i am gonna be 700 pounds if i live there....anyway after lunch we decided to go explore birmingham a little bit, we went to some freedome trails park or something, then decided that we would go to the botanical gardens! but on the way to the gardens we changed our minds and ended up at the Birmingham Zoo! they were closing early that day but we still got a good hour and a half in and saw so many cool things! it was a beautiful zoo! way smaller than the phoenix zoo, but very pretty, especially with all of the fall colors-which we never have here in az, but birmingham has a BEAUTIFUL fall. loved it. anyway so the zoo was awesome and then we decided that we were all hungry again so we went to the Mellow Mushroom and had some yummy pizza, and i nearly exploded after that delicious meal-the Watson-Patterson-Zahn families feed me TOO much! its always delicious, but dang guys you're gonna kill me! after dinner gramma and grampa had to go take care of the dog and josh and i went to go hang out with jesse! the boys played some video games and we watched some tv! and watching the two of them together is quite comical! after games and such we decided that we were hungry, mind you it was like 1115 pm......yes i know it is terrible. and of all the things, josh decided he had to have some krispy kreme-so we drove a whole 15 minutes to get some krispy kreme for all of us-and i thought they would be closed-but no, the place is 24 hours and i'm not even joking, there were a good 50 people inside and we were 7 cars deep in the drive through......the peeps of the birmingham area must really love their krispy kreme late at night man!

Birmingham Surprise Trip Day 1

So technically Thursday was Day 1 of my trip, buuttt we're making friday day one cause i already named the other post, and i'm too lazy to change it :) so on friday, even after staying up til WAYYYYY too late, i was up at 730-which would be 630 back home-yes it is criminal i know-but that gave me plenty of time to curl my hair and do nothing for several hours til joshua was done with football practice. i even had time to put on sparkly eye shadow haha yay! after he got done, we had a quick bite to eat, drove around a little, then headed off to the park where gramma and grampa are keeping their motor home! gramma made yummy dinner and then we played uno for hours! it was so much fun! i don't remember the last time i laughed so hard playing a silly game! we had such a great time! it reminded me so much of playing games with my own grandparents and all of the fun times we used to have-i definitely miss it, and it made me a little sad, but i was so glad i got to have some fun moments with my man and his grandparents! after several million games of uno, we had some delicious apple pie and joshua was falling asleep practically lol :) so we decided to leave so he could go to bed early, but by the time we got back he was hungry again, but first he wanted to go to the store-so we did some shopping, bought some delicious starbucks, then he decided he was hungry and so was i, so we went to taco bell, then picked up a movie and watched it while we ate! random i know, but it was lovely! after that we decided it was bedtime so we would not be so tired the next day!

operation surprise joshua

okay so the "post the trip story tomorrow" thing worked really well....NOT. haha sorry for the delay-if you only knew the chaos that ensues the week prior to thanksgiving sheesh. so i don't really know where to begin, its all fairly long and complicated so i'll do my best to keep it short or maybe i'll decided to break this up into multiple posts-not too sure how i feel yet!
so wednesday i went for girls day with emily, as we already know from my airport post :) it was a blast, i think i almost had a heart attack 4 times on the way into the airport terminal, twice in security, another 3 times waiting in the gate for two hours and probably another 5 on the plane, but i felt much better after landing, though i'm pretty sure joshua didn't appreciate the 4 hour delay in text (he decided to nap right at 2ish, and my plane didn't leave til 4-hence the need for multiple heart attacks, cause i was sure he wasn't gonna believe my movie and dinner story, but he did, thank goodness :) ) sooo anyway i sat by some nice ladies on the plane, they were sisters and hadn't seen each other in nearly a year so listening to their stories was quite entertaining!  when i got off the plane, i ran to the potty cause i was shocked by the 50 degree weather after being in the warm plane, and just as i made it down the escalator my bag was almost all the way around the carousel-perfect timing! then i called miss leia and she and her friend morgan picked me up. as soon as i got in the car they say "so are you hungry? do you like mexican food?" and i did my best not to laugh because i knew they were just being polite, but i did have to say "uh, i live in arizona....of course i love mexican food!" i was a little iffy of course because how do you really find legit mexican food in birmingham alabama? i thought it was gonna be like taco bell or something lol but we went to a little hole in the wall place called "los compadres". it wasn't too bad-but it definitely ain't no REAL mexican food like we have here, but it will do in a craving situation for future reference. the salsa i'm pretty sure was canned, and those were DEFINITELY not fresh chips-dang we are so spoiled here lol. oh and i ordered the taco platter. um i don't know if you've ever had a taco platter here in the az but it usually comes with fresh tortillas, delicious meat of your choice and a whole lotta rice and beans. yum. unfortunately this does not happen in the birmingham-you do get three very yummy tacos, but you get like grocery store tortillas and some cheese and lettuce  bahahha :) but i had a lot of fun and i met leia's other friend john too and we all had a great time chatting-john was super curious about arizona, it is so funny to see people's reaction when you say you came from arizona-their jaws all drop and they all say some variation of "you came ALL the way from arizona!?" like it's the other side of the world or something lol. after dinner we went back to leia's house and talked for hours and finally went to bed! i woke up fairly early the next morning for me and leia and i ate breakfast-then tried to plan our day full of things so we wouldn't be bored til gametime at 7 pm. boy lemme tell ya it is no easy task to make a whole day go by when you are wishing it was later lol. we ate lunch and went to the park, and ran errands, and it was only 1!! killer. we had so much fun though! i'm glad we had a whole day to just hang! we went early to tailgate-like 430 or 5ish and of course all of the mom's were dying to hear the surprise story, which was sweet! then i met katie and her family and they gave me my ticket to get in-they are so super sweet! and they even stuck around after the game to see josh's reaction. when it was finally time to go into the stadium leia and i walked directly into gramma and grandpa and i nearly died right on the spot! but somehow they managed not to recognize me so we ran up the stairs to get a spot and sat about 15-20 rows right behind them, i could see them the whole game but they couldn't see me! the game lasted FOREVER! unfortunately they lost, but i had so much fun sitting with leia and trey's family! his dad is super funny! and i met so many new friends!
 here is a picture of me right after the game ended trying to avoid the guys on the field seeing me and his grandparents! they are right to the right of my shoulder in the blue jackets!

they had no idea! as soon as we took this we ran out the gates to the spot where the players come out and did our best to hide ourselves so that josh and gramma and grampa wouldn't see! after what seemed like ten years they finally came out and leia told josh she had something for him, he knew something was up cause one of the guys had said "your night is about to get a whole lot better" but he wasn't sure still. when he got to me his jaw dropped and he was like "wow" haha and he just kinda stood there for a little bit-i think we definitely got him good cause he had NOOO idea whatsoever, all he could say was "wow" haha :) that's an extra point for me thank you very much :) his grandparents were quite shocked to and didn't really know what to say but it was definitely fun! and so worth all of the waiting! thank you to everyone who helped get it all together! especially Leia and Jesse who helped me plan the whole thing!

exhausted.

okay, so this weekend was largely a success-even after the big scare of doom!  i am very thankful, and i had a super wonderful time and i super hate that i'm typing this from my desk in gilbert arizona. very much. BUT-it was a super awesome weekend, and i love my man, and i hate flying, and i super love birmingham, and i love date nights and i love the zoo and i love shopping at 10:30 pm, and i love making food for the boys, and i love listening to joshua sing in the car, and i love going out in the rain, and i love birmingham in the fall with all it's pretty leaves, and i love early sweet thoughtful presents from my boy, and i love when my boy gives me his too small t-shirts so i have a million to sleep in, and i love when he tells me he loves me and gives me a super smooch. and i do like being back home-a little. but not nearly as much as i love being in birmingham. and with joshua. BUT-there are only 4 more weeks til he comes home, in fact he actually has a flight home on the 16th of december at like 9am, so hopefully these next few weeks go fast!  i would post all of the awesomeness from this weekend, but to be quite honest, i am currently trying not to fall asleep so i can finish this post! so i think tomorrow i will write out each day's adventures and tell about how the surprise turned out and all the crazy fun things we did, and if i can figure it out, i may even post the video of josh's face cause it's pretty funny! unfortunately, i have zero pictures of the two of us this weekend :( sadness. but it's okay, cause it was still a wonderful weekend and i love him! goodnight!

girls day=huge success!

My nails are did, my bags are packed, I'm chilling in the gate and I'm a total nervous wreck! I can't believe the day is finally here! It has certainly taken forever! I know I said I wouldn't post for a while but there is pretty much no one here and I'm incredibly bored, plus I have to do something to keep my mind off of my nervousness! Emily and I met up a little before 11 to have our nails done-we both agree that it is incredibly relaxing and we both want a massaging chair. And I have to say my legs have never been more moisturized! Holy crap they use a ton of lotion! But I got a hand, wrist, neck, shoulder, foot and calf massage so I aint complainin! And I smell fruity and delicious! Ha :) Emily got me THE cutest diary journal thing I have ever seen! It is a fill in the blank and multiple choice diary about your day. LOVE it!! It will be so much fun to use! I'm hoping I'll actually be disciplined and start using it on my trip or shortly after and keep up with it!
I am slyly looking around me every ten minutes checking for grandparents, but there are only about 30 or 40 people on the gate and no sign of them yet, so maybe they really did drive there! I'm hoping! I can't wait to land in birmingham and have Leia come pick me up! I won't lie- I am worried I will freeze my buns off the moment I step off the plane, but it was 40 degrees here this morning so I probably won't die lol :) still cold and I don't agree so I'm hoping it stays a little more on the warm side for me! It's finally after 3! Hopefully we'll board in about 30 minutes I am dying to get moving! I need it to be tomorrow already! And then once I see my man it needs to go SLOWWWWWW! Ha I doubt that it will last as long as I hope, but it will be super awesome regardless! I'm so sad that there aren't more people here to entertain my people watching love-that always makes the airport so worth it! okay now I'm really gonna go and pretend to be patient while I wait in this tiny gate! Xoxoxo!

t-minus 17 hours til take off!

i thought this day may not ever come! the last week has been such a rollercoaster and it has taken nearly ten years to get here!  but tomorrow is the big day-well almost lol, at least i'll actually be in birmingham tomorrow night! then it's only one more long day of waiting to be able to see my man and hopefully a surprised look on his face!  so i just now remembered while typing this that i probably shoulda checked in for my flight at 4 pm to get a decent boarding pass number.......yeah well i had a migraine today-they ruin everything in case you didn't already know. i slept right through the 4 o'clock time to check in to be in the early boarding category. dang migraines.  BUT there is good news-i just checked in, positive that i'd have some C boarding pass in the 40's or something, but by some miracle i am an A 18. explain that after all my bad luck last week hahah.  but i'll take it, it's right after business class, so if there is any chance of grandparents on a flight, i may still have a chance to hide in the back of the plane if they don't see me in the gate-we'll see.  my secret secret keeper miss jihae has informed me that their vehicle has been gone all day and that she is pretty sure they have left so we're keeping our fingers crossed over here so that this all goes off without a hitch.  leia said she's ready for me to be there-i'm so glad she's excited to! i hope we have so much fun! i can't wait to get there tomorrow night and spend thursday just hanging out and having fun!  she is such a sweet girl so i'm sure we'll have a blast! and katie sent me a message saying she has my ticket! YAY! it's all finally becoming real and exciting again!  josh still has no idea, he's been with uncle rob all week so it's kept him very busy and hopefully very distracted! uncle rob leaves tomorrow, but josh still has workouts and class and then football meetings at the hotel, so hopefully he'll be too busy to notice that i can't talk much, but we do have a back up plan just in case!  keep those fingers crossed folks!
and tomorrow is finally the big girls day!!!! i cannot wait! i have been dying for it to get here! emily and i always have so much fun, but we never get lots of time to do anything too girly! so tomorrow will be super fun and exciting!  ANNND i get to give her her birthday present! i hope she likes it! okay well i'm off to pack the last few things i need and head to bed cause i have a buttload to do tomorrow before i leave! i don't know that i'll get to posting til i get back, but hopefully the next one i will have a super awesome story to post! yay!

happy birthday to nicole!

today nicole turned 16-kinda crazy to think that she's already 16, but i guess everyone must turn 16 at some point.  i wrapped all of her gifts in sponge bob paper i found several months ago and hung a sponge bob birthday banner across the kitchen for her to see-not too sure how she liked it because there was no real reaction when she came home, i think largely because there was the distraction of a boy.  but as long as she had a good day, that is all that really matters.  we had a quiet family dinner at home, which seems to be more and more rare these days, but it was nice all the same, and then we went to gramma's to have some cake and open her presents.  hopefully she liked them all, it was hard to tell.  i think i have come to the realization that i am incredibly lame, well in the world of high schoolers that is, so i didn't get the reaction i originally expected from my gifts. but things change i guess, the things that we used to enjoy we don't, everyone grows up, one day things are not what they used to be, and that is okay. in time i think i will accept it better when i'm not feeling quite so crushed lol.
just two more painfully long days to go! i think i'll do some housecleaning tomorrow after work to help pass the time. and as soon as my last load of laundry for my trip is done i am off to bed cause i have an early day in casa grande tomorrow!

hello curling iron :)

so today while cleaning my room and being super proud of the fact that i only have 2 loads of laundry cause all of my other laundry is already packed-i discovered that i really truly had not finished packing like i thought!  i completely forgot that i need a hair dryer......i can't use the hotel ones anymore now that my hair has grown back in thick and full (hallelujah!) so i need my own-and since it's supposed to be a high of 72 MAX i'm thinking i'll freeze if i have wet hair all day! so now i have to do some rearranging! poo!  oh well-and i'll have to make some room for a curling iron-yes, i have not used one in over a year because my hair couldn't handle it after mono, plus i had no hair to curl cause a) it all fell out and b) it was way super short and thin-so no good for curling like i used to-which was super uber suckish because i used to always do a quick curl on the ends and go about my day-i always got compliments and i never spent more than 5 minutes cause it always just fell into place and looked perfectly imperfect-then mono ruined it and i never realized how much a under-appreciated my hair-i have however changed my ways and i'm no longer ungrateful! i am super excited to report that since i started boosting my vitamins and gained a few extra pounds i have thick and full hair again, it's not quite back to it's original state, but it's getting closer and i am SO happy about it.  i have broken 2-count them!- 2 hair ties in the last month, which i never thought i would do again! and today i curled it for the first time just to see if it would still be an easily manageable thing, and it worked :) it is currently happily perfectly imperfectly bouncing around on my head, and i feel like i could be in a hair commercial today. it is definitely something to be happy about today-it also means that my hair will be super easy to maintain on vacation next week too-not that i spend an excessive amount on myself, but with thin hair it took me way longer to get ready! but no more! i will look beautiful and spend little time! yay! we should all have a celebration because this is a miracle moment for sure-appreciate and love it please!  such a beautiful saturday-maybe this will mean this week is destined for greatness! keep your fingers crossed!

at least it's friday!

this is the phrase i have been using all morning-i am less than my usual bubbly self, especially the last 3 days.  in fact today, i am a super grouch.  i had a headache all day yesterday and it didn't help that i felt achy and sick on top of it, i slept good last night for the first time in a while, so you'd think that would help. but no. i am having super feelings of jealousy today. and none of the things i normally do are shaking it, so i'm kinda at a loss at this point.  it sounds really terrible, but i am totally jealous of the fact that josh's family has been to all but 2 games on the season, which means that each weekend they get 2-4 days with him, ALL to themselves, unlike me who only ever gets to go when someone else is going and i always have to share, and then he'll come home in december and i'll do the same damn thing cause we'll spend every waking moment together with someone else cause its the holidays.  and everytime they are in town, he is super busy hanging out with them so i don't talk to him at all for 4 days.  you'd think by now i'd be used to it, but i still hate it.  and i'm trying to remember that it is great that they can be there to support him, but lately i feel less and less like its a WONDERFUL thing.  that's rude, but it's how i feel right now.  i don't hate them for it, i hate that i can't be there though, and i hate even more that there's nothing i can do about it.
we went to lunch with Lisa today-she is pretty much the sweetest lady on the planet.  she always has great crafty ideas and funny stories.  she was super bummed to find out that we pushed the wedding date back, kinda funny cause i really didn't think that it would be upsetting to anyone but me, but she was genuinely bummed.  which i think is nice-at least i know i'll have good help when the time finally comes!  talking about all of the ideas we have made me kinda depressed, i mean i love to think about it, but i packed up all of my ideas and shoved them in a box so that i wouldn't have to look at them after the huge disappointment of learning it all couldn't happen.  so i haven't really thought about it much since i threw everything in the box in september.  hopefully next time i have to really think about it, i can be excited about it again cause there will actually really  be something happening.  i'm trying to leave that alone for a while cause it isn't time, and i don't need anything else with false hope this week!
i guess i should really get back to work-it sounds less than appealing at the moment, but it is what makes everything happen so gotta keep on keepin on i guess.  i'm hoping tomorrow i can have an exciting post for a change and maybe UAB will win their homecoming game-it would at least brighten the next week!

one week to go!

well we are down to just one week before i leave.....my enthusiasm and excitement is still not back to the level it was before.  i have a plan b and c ready depending on where and when i see the grandparents.  right now i'm feeling like i shouldn't say anything to anyone and surprise them all so it doesn't look like they have all been in on it, because they haven't.  i'm still incredibly disappointed that they will be there since the whole intention was to give Josh a vacation for once and so that he didn't have to balance his time between everyone who came to visit like he always does.  i canceled all of my day trip plans for atlanta yesterday-guess it's a good thing i didn't buy the tickets for the aquarium like i was going to cause it would have been a waste at this point.  we'll just have to hope it all goes at least semi well cause right now i feel like its all gone to crap.  that sounds horrible and selfish, but if you worked for 2 and a half months, you would feel the same way too.  i'm planning another trip for the spring when i can find some money, and i fully intend to make sure NO ONE can ruin anything this time.  and we will go do a day trip to atlanta, and we will go on at least one date by ourselves and we will have a good time-and i will not share or divide my time between anyone for the entire weekend. period. no exceptions at all. 
in other news, i found a super bargain on two pairs of jeans at Urban Xchange a few days ago-less than 15 each, and they are in good shape.  if you want some expensive jeans for cheap, it would be the place to look if you are okay with used!  it's in the strip mall on the corner of val vista and guadalupe if you wanna check it out.  never know what you'll find, but it's worth a shot! and i also found a shirt at marshall's to replace the blue one joshua loved and out grew-maybe i'll take it to him next week, or maybe i'll just mail it-haven't decided which would work best yet!  hopefully the rest of this week goes smoothly and everything ends up and works out fine. i don't know if i can handle anything else going wrong, cause quite frankly the first wrench thrown in all my hard work made me cry. and i haven't slept in 2 days trying to come up with something new.

the best laid plans.

okay, i am not a crazy person who posts multiple times a day, but i am way super overwhelmed and frustrated at the moment and i have to do something.  everything that i have been working so hard for this last 7 weeks is totally in ruin.  Josh's grandparents are going to the game i am going to-not that i don't love them-but the WHOLE point was so there was NO ONE there and that he wasn't expecting anyone to come :( but now he'll be expecting them so my surprise will not mean nearly as much.  nor will we get to do all the cool things i had planned, or double date with leia and trey, or take josh away from his dorm and have a day trip or anything.  ugh. i seriously should have known it was all too good to be true, i didn't tell anyone cause i know its hard for them to keep secrets and now they have changed their original plans and are coming so everything i thought i did so good on is no bueno. i am super bummed out. and now i only have 5 little days to come up with something at least half way decent.  it won't even be a 1/3 of the greatness that my other plan was. it will still mean a lot to him i'm sure, but its not the same and i know it. it will not have nearly the affect that it was intended because there are going to be other people.  quite frankly right now i want to curl up in a large ball. i know that really doesn't help the situation, but i feel totally helpless, i can't call and ask them to cancel even though i want them too. i know they want to be there to see him too, but i always always always have to share when he's home. we never even get to have a date night to ourselves. EVER. seriously in the almost 2 years we've been dating i can count 4-yes 4 actual dates where we were COMPLETELY on our own somewhere at dinner or a movie.  he's never home long enough for us to go out for just us, and i understand that everyone wants to see him, but i thought this would be an actual chance for us to have some us time to talk and see a movie without a family with us or just have dinner like a real couple for a change.  looks like that is not happening until we're married at this rate. oh well, at least i will get to go and see him, it's better than nothing at all. but honestly this news has completely killed all of the excitement that i had this week. it's all shot. i'm still excited to go, i really want to see him.  but knowing that i have no us time and that i have to figure out how to keep more people quiet and find a new plan to surprise him just kills all of it and i feel rather defeated after all of my hard work.  so much for that lol, he did tell me i'd never be able to surprise him fully, and apparently he jinxed me pretty good, cause i had the deal all sealed and now its definitely not gonna work anymore.  hopefully i'll come up with something new, or maybe i'll get lucky and his information will be wrong, but i feel that the latter is not the case seeing as inside sources have already informed me otherwise.  bummage. i guess i'll check back in when i have more news. for now i'm going to go sit and mope and try to find something better and try not to cry lol.

babysitting my lily and toto

november is finally here! it is quite the glorious fun filled month!  it is always busy and usually goes by too fast, but this year i'm thinking it will be SUPER great! there are so many wonderful things to look forward to! and that is awesome!  last night i watched chris and jihae's kiddos-they are certainly quite adorable and i never mind going to babysit cause they are always well behaved and so much fun!  i love that jihae always calls me "aunt aly"-i'm not even engaged to josh, but i guess that doesn't matter! guess i shouldn't worry about being an accepted member of the family eh? ha :) like the kids know the difference anyway!  we watched shark tale or something of the variety, not really sure-it was about fish and sharks and i'm pretty sure will smith was in it, but whatever! it was cute and fun!  the kids are hilarious with their halloween candy-they each got to pick one to eat as dessert after dinner and lily pulled out this tiny bag of candy corn with the craziest look of puzzlement on her face, i tried super hard not to laugh! but it was just too cute! she looked at it then looked at me, then looks at it again while holding it out away from her with two fingers and says, "WHAT is it?" as only three year old lilster can do. when i told her it was candy corn she just raised an eyebrow at me, so i opened the package and let her try them, she studied them for a moment then ate one, then poured the rest (like 7 candy corn-definitely not enough for a bite lol) out and counted them all and lined them up-i think it's safe to say she is not afraid of the strangeness of candy corn anymore!  then toph, good ol tophy, he pulls out a sucker with great pride and says "i want this one!" and hold onto it with both hands lol then he just holds it for a while and when i took the paper off of the little ball on a stick he looks at it with this HUGE grin and wide eyes and holds it out to me like it is a new invention that could change the universe. and then he just sat there in his chair with it for a long time and looked at it, and smiled at it, and held it out to me, and told me that he had a sucker. i think after a good 45 minutes he actually finally licked the thing-such a little goose!  he also showed me his tattoos last night-such a funny little guy, and he was SO excited to take a bath ha. lily had a super headache and almost made me cry when she asked me to please not wash her hair because it hurt :( poor baby, so i put her to bed and she was gone in like ten minutes! and since toph was still a little rowdy i kept him playing in the bath for a little hoping lily would be asleep by the time i had him bathed-when i put a towel on him and pulled him out of the tub he wraps the towel under his arms  and stiffens them close to his sides so i lifted him out to by his shoulders and like a super hero he goes "TOPPPHHHEEERRRR!!!!" hahah it was the funniest thing ever! i almost dropped him right back in the water cause it was so unexpected but it was definitely a highlight of my day-kids are SO amazing and so incredibly funny, they are definitely full of surprises and i love it! the house felt super quiet and lonely (i was at josh's mom's house for all of this babysitting) and it was weird to be there without josh, i kept expecting him to walk upstairs or something!  the only real noise was callie kitty SNORING in the chair next to me and the "little" kitten playing "attack the mat" in front of me on the floor. it was rather relaxing!  then chris and jihae came back from bible study and i got some girl chat time with jihae! i super love her-she has always made me feel SO welcome from day 1 and she genuinely cares about people, she is such a sweet sweeet lady, and i love her husband too! they are so awesome! i can't wait to hang with them when joshy bear comes home! while i was there i told them about "operation surprise joshua" and they LOVE it! they are my super secret secret keepers and they are so excited too! they think it is a super awesome idea-and they are always awesome about not telling, they are not the gossiping type so i'm not worried about a slip! plus there are only 9 more days! they even gave me 20 bucks for babysitting and said to use it toward my girls day! yahoo! thakns guys, you are super sweet! and i super love you a lot! i can't wait to be a real aunt to your kids! and jihae-you are the best unofficial-almost-future-sister-in-law ever!

boots with the fur

no this is not about the rap song and girls with bootlicious pants or boots with fur...it's about my new boots, they have fur, though it is definitely not the real stuff, and they definitely don't go with apple bottoms...i highly doubt i'd be caught dead in those jeans ever in my lifetime-largely cause i'm not a gangsters girlfriend and i am too cheap....and i'm pretty sure they are way more expensive than my boots with the fur anyway and that is pushing it cause the boots, though cheap, were still more than the 20 dollars that i like to spend on things. so no apple bottoms for me!  about my boots, cause that is what's important here-i got a super lovely deal at the payless down the street-and they are super comfy and even though i'm not a hugely large fan of the little pom pom things that wrap around, i am a hugely large fan of their comfy warm insides and the fact that they are all black and can go with anything i need them to. A+. and they were less than $50, and we got half off on another pair of shoes-yay BOGO! they did not however have the second pair of boots that i wanted to try on in the store, which bummed me out, but i think i like these wayyy better anyway so i'm not as sad-and they will be perfect for helping to keep me warm in the chilly land known as birmingham come next week! at first i was worried that it would be lame of me to wear boots there considering i think it's gonna be freezing cause their weather is like it is here in our coldest part of december-but i have been told that i will not be a loser freak and the only one wearing boots-thank goodness cause i was worried! lame desert girl that i am ha.  i am however slightly concerned about my packing situation.......my suitcase is huge-and while i'm staying for a almost a week for vacation, i have discovered that there are a lot more clothes needed when staying in a colder climate-so much for packing light this go round! big stuffed suitcase it is- i feel like it was slightly obsessive to find all my clothes for the week that i'll be gone, buttttttt i'm rather excited and it is just ten days away now so i feel it is okay to pack early! my justification is that i must make sure it all fits-you can never have too many jackets... or long sleeves, or warm fuzzy socks.  hopefully miss leia's family will not think i am a total freak  with all of my warm clothes!
on another note-it is halloween and i am doing nothing! i would love to at least carve a pumpkin with my boy or something-hopefully that will all work out for next year!  no trick or treaters come to our house so should be a quiet night-especially since joshua and his roommate jesse are having a game night-more like man date, but he'd kill me if i called it that ha :) have a super awesome week!

early pay day's

tomorrow is friday-friday's are beautiful days in the world, well usually, meaning like 98% of the time!  every other friday is also pay day, and that makes them doubly beautiful days in my book!  but today was thursday-the day before friday and the day before friday pay day-BUT there is a wonderful invention called direct deposit that make friday pay day's even more glorious because friday pay days then come on thursdays instead! hooray! it tis quite a miracle if you ask me-and it is my expert opinion we are talking about here so i'm pretttttyyy sure you should believe me.  so today was a glorious day because it was early pay day ANDDDD i got to work at the downtown office which is always fun since you get to listen to the guys make fun of each other all day long while you are doing your work!  i think it might be slightly counter productive but it is awesomely fun and pretty hilarious when rob and dustin, who have become like instant older brothers to me-kinda scary, but they like josh and they watch his football games even though they have never met him which i think is sweet, so i will let them be my older brothers!  so my day was happily entertained while i did boring data entry which became less boring listening to the two of them and then i happily recieved my check in my account which sent me a happy text saying that a deposit had been made so tomorrow i can go shopping with my happy kohl's cash and buy my much needed long sleeves for my big winter excursion to the great deathly cold across this vast united states.......dramatic? maybe-but i have lived here my whole life so anything less than a high of 44 is genuinely considered freezing. period. no ifs ands or buts.  so i will be getting another long sleeve shirt at least!  (i may have already bought two yesterday on a lunch break outing with my mother and they may or may not have been only $4.99 at ROSS......just saying-you don't pass up that deal my friends!) i hope everyone has a happy happy day!

new friends, mother presents and almost wednesdays

it is almost wednesday, and that is a happy thing for me because wednesday means just 15 more days and that means only 2 more weeks til girls day and my big surprise! "WOOOO!" doesn't even begin to describe the happiness....i don't know that there is an exclamation that does now that i think of it-but that is really irrelevant at this point. ha. anywhoooooo, today i made another new friend, well i guess it isn't exactly that, but i'm counting it as such.  i've made two new friends in birmingham just this week!  they are both very sweet girls- i am very excited to get to meet them in person when i go! and leia told me that we're gonna tailgate which i've never done before so that will be way fun and cool too! hooray!
today was a realatively good day-yesterday not so much, it ended in a lot of tears and ugliness and lets just avoid that part eh? but today i worked and i got to play the piano for a good hour, which i certainly miss-i even pulled out my christmas music because no one was home.  i always like to practice early so that by the time rolls around when i'm actually allowed to play then i'm actually practiced up and it doesn't come out so badly!  i do love christmas music, it's probably one of my most favorite piano playing times!
gramma had her final cataract surgery today! i'm excited to see how much more she'll be able to see now with both eyes done, considering the fact that after the first one she had 20/25 vision, i'm guessing this time she'll be pretty well off too!  i still think it's rather funny that she is surprised she has gray hair....but i guess when you can't see it you wouldn't know! though she is 83 sooooo....haha
tonight my mother kindly brought me some new shirts-well they are just cami's to go under shirts, but i appreciate it nonetheless because they get expensive and i always seem to need them!  she found them on sale at kohl's i guess! i don't really care cause they were free! and free is a beautiful thing for me right now and my tiny little budget!  she also gave me her special kohl's cash coupon-basically it's like free money and it's worth a whole $20! that isn't huge probably, but it's huge for me cause i could really use some long sleeve shirts for my trip and for this winter and i really cannot afford to buy any right now! so i'm hoping maybe i can get one or two or possible 3 and only have to spend maybe $20 of my own along with my free kohl's cash!  we'll see if i get lucky enough for that come this weekend when it becomes usable and i have been paid!  woot!  have a happy wednesday!

17 days and counting

so i am officially at the 17 day mark in my countdown!  (if we wanna get technical its technically still 18 since it isn't midnight and it isn't the 25th of october....but humor me, 17 sounds so much closer.)  i have officially been productive this weekend-though by looking at the house you probably would not agree ha.  i did however get out the fall decorations, put all the fall flowers back in their pots by the front door, and put out all my pumpkins, baby scarecrows, and logs and i even helped rearrange all of the backyard furniture!  it's all starting to actually look like a backyard now!  it definitely has a long way to go, but one of these days it will get there.  i am excited to plant some fall flowers in my grandmas old fountain that now sits nicely under one of our big bushes-we'll see if mom lets me plant it how i want :) i also wrapped all of the november birthday gifts and it is not even november yet-there is a first time for never procrastinating ha we'll see how long it actually lasts however!  i also filled out my november month calender on the wall, it is looking quite festive with my hand drawn leaves-and for once they actually look like leaves, it is not questionable as to what i drew like last month's bat/pumpkin attempt!
and the best work i did this weekend was get my football game ticket!  my sweet new friend katie offered me one of her free ones so that none of the boys have to remember to write my name down on the list and no one can accidentally say things they aren't supposed to!  hooray! now i can actually start to feel excited because the pieces are all in order, now i just gotta make sure i stay quiet and  try to refrain from packing (though secretly i've had things that i don't use, i.e. my winter pj's, robe, and sweatshirts, oh and miss leia's thank you gift, and my hat for disguise, all packed since the 15th of october......yes that is pathetic, but i am very excited so i'm not feeling like a loser for it ha :) and i know i'll still end up taking all of it out and frantically repacking the night before, because that is just how i roll!
here's to a FAST, good week! and a super duper fast next 17 days-i'm in desperate need of the manicure and pedicure emily and i are going for before my long flight! and i am dying to see my man's face when he discovers me in birmingham :)

the "golden years" or whatever they call them

so i've been doing a lot of thinking lately, which may or may not benefit me, i'm never entirely sure about that, but this weeks thoughts have been about the "wonderful" years that everyone says happen between the ages of 18 and 22 or whatever the window is.........uh yeah. how about whoever said that should reevaluate their thinking.  while i will agree, that there are some exciting things that seem to happen in this window, i would not say that these are the "BEST" years of life by any stretch of the imagination.  i guess if you were going off to college on mommy and daddy's paycheck and partying it up with your friends and roommates every weekend, this WOULD be the ideal time of your life since you have ZERO responsibility AND the convenience of always hanging out with your friends. other than that right there i see little in the way of "wonderful".  a large majority of the time i feel the exact opposite.  maybe its because i royally suck at finding the positives right now-but i feel like you turn 18 and the world says, "hello, you are an adult now, this is the real world" and at the same time you can do absolutely nothing completely on your own.  yes, you can take care of yourself, move out, have a job, go to school, pay your bills.....whatever. but there's still a lot that you can't do because portions of the "real world" say you are not allowed to yet.  so which is it? are we really full fledged and responsible adults at 18? or do they just want us to start to feel that way, then mature another 3 years, THEN dub us full fledged responsible members of society? it's a question i have yet to answer.  there's a lot in this "age" of life that i feel i am held back on, most of it is out of my control, and while i should probably just go with the flow and leave it alone, i don't feel that i should have to if i'm legally considered an adult..but there's not much i can do about it but sit back and let it pass.  maybe in a few years or ten or fifteen years down the road, i can look back and say "wow, to be 19 again." but i highly doubt it.  to be completely honest it feels like high school all over again.  i'm still "allowed" to make my own decisions, but essentially someone else is still controlling them.  it is less than appreciated.  while i know some of that control is done for my own good, i'm pretty sure about 88% of it is NOT necessary and is done sheerly because it can be.  i'm fairly tired of it, but exactly how far do you go to push that envelope before you're in hot water and in trouble with those "watching out" for you?  so far, i have yet to find a nice way to do that, right now the option is piss everyone off, or go along with what makes them happy til there's a better way to get out.  so unfortunately i'm stuck with the latter, which less than pleases me.  hopefully someone will take the "i'm a legally responsible adult" thing to heart one of these and ACTUALLY let me be one. or maybe never, considering our generation and the terrible reputation that they have given those of us in this age bracket.....
at least it is friday.

it's wednesday!

hooray for wednesdays! i don't always say that, but this week has been pretty good considering the crappy one that was last week!  i have gone walking every morning-and the weather has been wonderful!  this does mean that i have to be up before 7....which does not please me after going to bed at midnight, but hopefully i'll start to have the opportunity for a better sleeping schedule soon!
this week has been rather busy but at least it's all in a positive direction. it is definitely much needed!  i had a hair cut yesterday, which always makes me feel better!  plus i love my girl time with miss sharon cause she is amazing!  i even had my eyebrows waxed this week-which may not be a big deal to most, but since i have had like NO hair for a year, i've had no need for eyebrow fixing-so its a miracle in itself to have to go back in! EXCEPT......the eyebrow lady kindly told me that i have uneven eyebrows- I was thinking she meant of course that the two large bushes on my face were uneven and needed fixed so i said "they probably are cause i haven't had any eyebrows for like a year and they just recently started growing like crazy." And then she says (as only the chinese ladies at the nail place can say), "No, no, I mean on your face, one is higher up than the other.  But don't worry, i will trim for you so they will never notice!"  THANK YOU EYEBROW LADY!!!! that just really made me feel SOOOO much better about myself!!  Now everytime i walk by a mirror i wanna get out my ruler and make sure they don't look too uneven before anyone looks at my face!!!! geez i'm gonna be self conscious about it forever now!  she didn't say it to be mean, i think it is rather funny myself, and i must say she did a fantastic job! best i've had so far, but i'm still worried about my one high eyebrow now.....
lots of things have made my heart happy this week.  for instance, Emily texted me in the middle of the day and told me that her wonderful man called her while he was at the airport waiting to leave for Honduras-he'll be gone for two years, so it's kinda a big deal! and they got to talk twice!  they are such a sweet love story-i am rather in love with the fact that they are in love-or i guess i'm more in love with the fact that Emily is in love cause we've been best friends for probably a good 8 years now, and i could not be more happy for her :) i love that we are sharing a lot of the same experiences together-it definitely makes life very fun!
AND Joshua has been a booger this week!  okay maybe booger isn't the way to describe it!  he is such a sweetheart, but sometimes he tortures the crap out of me!!!!!!! i love it but it certainly drives me crazy!  he told me recently that he was working on making my ring-if that isn't enough to torture me then i don't know what is!  so of course i'm excited as crap that he told me this and just DYING to know what it's gonna look like and when i get to see it and when he's gonna propose!  and then i started freaking out about it because i'm Alycia Hall and that's what i do-so i've overanalyzed ever possible way that this could possibly go down and i KNOW i'm not even CLOSE because i so do not ever figure out what Joshua plans SO basically i'm now torturing myself cause he just gave me baby clues and nothing i can actually go off of!!!!! and he likes to remind me about it OFTEN! and when i tell him i need some more hints he gives me a roundabout answer so he doesn't actually have to give me the hint-he thinks he's a brilliant genius and i think he's a big fat meany :) but i do love that he is excited about it-he's pretty cute when he's very excited-and i love that he always thinks of the sweetest ways to surprise me!  this will be yet another surprise in the books for him when it comes time, and i still have nothing on him.....YET!  he also oh so lovingly told me that he was surprising me for my birthday.....UH seriously?!?! he is just trying to kill me before december even gets here!  i have no idea what he has up his sleeve but that boy better not do something crazy!! we will have to see how it goes-maybe he'll forget about it once i have some points on the board ;)

hmm...

hmmm is how i feel at the current moment, well hmm is my excuse for not knowing how to fully describe all the thoughts in my poor little brain actually.  have you ever been just totally and completely confused and bewildered and lost and lonely and sad and upset and overwhelmed at once? that would pretty much sum up the interior workings of my brain right at this moment i think.  i don't think i can fully articulate them, it's just one of those things....i am a fix it person, and i am currently in a situation that i have no real control over, which therefore limits my ability to "fix" like a normally do.  this is a somewhat difficult thing for me to fix, especially in my first born "have to have it right" personality.  sometimes i want to curse my birth order personality, today is one of those days.  i also feel like this is maybe a learning moment where i should hand the reigns over the the man upstairs and let Him guide me through.  i trust him, but somehow i still seem to be having trouble letting go-stupid human-ness sometimes, i know what is best for me, but somehow i can't seem to fully detach, i feel like there's something more i'm supposed to be doing, but i think in actuality i'm actually getting in the way more than anything.  it doesn't help that jz is struggling just as much or more.  it is kinda just an ugly rut for both of us i think.  but to be completely honest, it is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it scares me.  i am so unsure of everything right now.  we both are.  its like the last two months have been bad news and lots of unexpected curve balls that have totally wrecked us, i'm sure there is something good to come out of it, but sometimes when you look at it, it feels like the good may never come and you don't know how much more you can really handle before you just completely break down.  lets hope that we can at least hold on another 26 days.....it is extremely crucial....more crucial than most human minds can comprehend.  it will be necessary for more than just the simple fact of a vacation and a weekend get away, it will be a confidence booster for the man, or at least a glimmer of one hopefully, and a relationship rebuilding, not so much rebuilding, more like just quality bonding? i'm not sure of the word i'm really looking for here, its time for us to just be and forget the yucky hard stuff and just be and have fun.  i'm not completely sure how to pull it off quite yet, but i think i'll be working some overtime hours to swing some kind of fun activity/double date thing with a bud and his girlfriend to help get the boys mind off of the ugly at least for those 4 days.  then the last few weeks of the semester and season will hopefully be a little more bearable.  honestly if it doesn't work, i'm afraid of what might happen, and i'd rather not even touch on that cause it scares me more than i can put in words.
on a similar note, hopefully i don't get in trouble for this later, but currently i'm pretty sure only 2 people read this so i'm probably safe........how long do you do something to please someone else before it becomes unhealthy for you?  i mean honestly, if you are only doing something for someone else, that you purely hate, should you really do it? i guess the real question is more like, how do you help support someone who feels like doing the thing is the only option?  it is something i am working on, my "first born fix it" side says that there are lots of options and that regardless of what someone else thinks, there are always ways to make it work if you stop doing the thing you didn't want to do in the first place, but then the other side of me says, its better to stay out of it and just support and hold a hand and keep encouraging........sometimes i would really love a simpler decision instead of a hard one, like one day where my biggest decision ALL day would be which toothpaste box i think looked nicest and that would therefore influence my buying decision.......HA :) that probably is more than ridiculous, but i have to admit, i think that would be more than a lovely day!
sorry for the lengthy post, but this was intended for my thoughts, so this is what you get :) i think maybe after all of this thinking it's time for some prayer and bed, tomorrow is a new day at least, and maybe i will successfully find an answer when i quit looking so hard.  i'm starting small, i think, finding God in one small thing each day that i don't normally notice or look for, and one thing i tend to under-appreciate each day i will make sure i acknowledge and be thankful for.  it is a start at least in a positive direction, and that is always a good thing :)

quiet saturday

I will say that today has been fairly quiet, minus of course the yelling that has been going on during the UAB vs. UTEP game.  It is nearly impossible to watch a football game and NOT yell however, so I do believe it is acceptable. Plus, today the boys played great!  And they won their first conference game so that is double awesome!  The final was 21-6, all 21 of our points came in the second half, for those of you who care to have a UAB football fact of the day lol.
I feel super incredibly lazy today.  I am guilty of staying in bed til nearly noon-I think I woke up at like 11:20, and I didn't even bother getting out of bed til like ten to noon, just in time to set up the computer for  the big game.  I know I got off work late, but that might have been a bit of overkill in the "sleeping in" category to be honest.  I won't lie though, it was QUITE wonderful and much needed-however, I am less convinced that "beauty sleep" actually works after seeing myself get out of bed today ha :) I still have yet to understand how if I don't move when I sleep and I wake up in the same spot I crashed in, my hair can somehow always be such an ugly mess, its usually just weird looking, but still, I mean seriously, talk about embarassing.  I'm kinda hoping to conquer ugly hair before poor Josh decides to marry me and has to wake up next to monstrous hair every morning that might just scare the living crap out of him and make him run away, but then again, as I say this, I think back to the time I had mono and how INCREDIBLY MONSTROUS I looked for like 3 months, and if that didn't scare him away, I guess my ugly morning hair won't be such a problem.  Besides, he'll one day vow to love me no matter what, SO that means he HAS to love my ugly morning hair too. SUCKER :)
Now that the UAB game is over, I guess I should get up off my lazy butt and do something, but I'm feeling like maybe today is a chill with sweatpants and no make up and do nothing incredibly productive.  I think I might soak up this non productive day since it's gonna be back to work on monday!  At least there's only another 26 before my "girls day" off!  Thank goodness!

ahhh Friday....

This has been kinda a ridiculous week, I won't lie.  Things have been SO busy and SO stressful.  Sometimes I am just ready to give up completely, sometimes I want to just pull my hair out of my head, sometimes I feel like doing nothing but crying, and sometimes I want to just scream.  There has not been much laughter or smiling, except on the rare days when I can webcam with Joshua or he tells me something exciting.  I will say the best part of the week was when he told me he was so excited to finally have his idea for my ring and that he was so excited to have all of the pieces and couldn't wait to tell me more but wanted to keep it a secret still.....BOOGER!  He knows how much I hate having so little information-it kills me.  I do think its very sweet that he is so excited about it and tries so hard to find things he can tell me without giving it away! Its pretty cute!  I'm quite excited myself to see how it all turns out and what it looks like and I'm dying to know how he's going to propose, but unfortunately I will have to be waiting for that, because he won't even HINT at it......again, BOOGER! SO unfair, but I don't really want him to spoil it so I guess I'll try to exercise some PATIENCE.....which is nearly impossible because it was the one and only virtue that I was unfortunately, NOT blessed with.  It seems to be increasingly important lately-and yet, I still have no luck!  Maybe one day by some miracle it will appear-until then I should probably be checked for high blood pressure!  In other news, my Christmas gifts that I ordered online last week are almost here......well half of them are here and the other half are still being shipped......USPS is incredibly SLOW sometimes.  And I less than appreciate it when they SHOVE my WHOLE LARGE package into the TINY mailbox instead of nicely getting off their lazy behinds and walking it to my door. RUDE. Thank goodness nothing has been damaged yet, or someone would be getting an EARFUL. As soon as they arrive I do believe that I will only have 2 items left to find, and that my friends is a miracle, and I took care of 7 families, 4 friends, 5 family members, Joshua, 3 birthdays, 2 baby shower gifts, 1 wedding gift and 1 thank you gift-all under $350. I am kinda awesome if I do say so myself.  I even got a "me" present or two cause I needed one!  Yay me!  I am seriously counting down the days til November now-the wait is KILLING me! But hopefully the time will go fast and things will work out great! 

Seriously...

This week has been less than stellar.  Like WAY less.  Its quite possible that a large contributing factor to my bad attitude is pms, yay hormones, but the other part is idiot people.  I feel somewhat bad for having a venting all of my negativity post, but then again I don't, cause quite frankly I don't currently feel bad about any of the thoughts in my head right now.  I may have seriously jealousy issues, but I don't really care about those either right now.  Since I can't name any names and I can't really say what I want to, I'll just say this:  I'm sick and tired of watching people DO NOTHING and get handed everything.  I am tired of listening to all of the BS about how it will come back to bite them later.  I'm tired of having to act like it doesn't bother me.  If you want something, get off your lazy butt and go do something about it, get rid of your entitlement attitude and actually do something to benefit the society and community of people around you.  I don't feel sorry for any of these things-so don't say two words to me about how rude they might have been.  Hopefully this week is much better than last.  I can't take anymore stupidity and I don't need anymore bad news.

A Trip Down Memory Lane....Sort Of

Okay so this is slow coming but I'm finally getting around to it-it's hard to keep up with a blog sometimes when life is craziness!  Anyway, so on Thursday Nicole last minute had an emergency and could not go work the Highland High Varsity Football game (why it was on a Thursday, I do not know, other than the fact that cox 7 was there and wanted to film everything, but they were largely a pain and in the way and I did not much appreciate having to work around all of their crapola), so being somewhat experienced at the same job, I told her I would cover for her......this was largely in part because I had NOTHING to do for the evening seeing as Nicole would not be around and Mom and Dad always go out for date night on Thursdays, plus Josh is kinda like 1300 miles away at the moment so that doesn't leave much for hanging out there, and I do believe he was on a "man date" as I would call it with his suite mate Jesse (who happens to be a very nice suite mate and he and Josh are super good buds and I love that!) SO anyways, I went to cover this game, slightly, okay more like incredibly, terrified because its been over 2 years since I have had to fix anything similar to a helmet and the mere thought of something breaking during game time gave me a heart attack so I was pretty sure I would surely die if anything were to go wrong....I probably would have survived seeing as some fire fighter people were there since there were fireworks, but still.  I'm pretty sure I shocked the crap out of most people cause no one knew I was coming and no one would have expected me, so that was kinda cool, plus I got to see so many teachers and coaches that I enjoyed working with when I was there!  I even saw Mr. Vincent, who is the sole reason that I became involved in sports! He's pretty much like a smaller version of my own father and I definitely miss working with the guy!  It was definitely kinda a strange experience since the last time I was on or near the game field was when I was still in high school and when I started dating Joshua.  Part of me loved it, but there was a part of me that felt way funny, I think largely in part because the players I used to know are no longer associated with the numbers I remember and because I only know like maybe 7 of the kids that are still there!  Thankfully nothing went wrong during the game, and I had some great conversations with old friends and teachers!  It was overall a very good evening!  I kept having strange flashbacks of all the times I spent on that field and all of those great memories, its so weird to think that it was really only 2 years ago, but sometimes it feels like it was 20 years ago with all that has happened in the last 2 years.  I don't necessarily miss all the sweat and stinky boys, but I do miss being so close to all of the action, and the great relationships that were built, and it will always be (yes this is preparing for cheesiness, so deal with it) special because it is where I met and fell in love with a very cute football player! :) 

Dear Hobby Lobby, You Are AWESOME!

So I have to say today was an overall good day, minus the part where my phone completely quit working-but the nice lady and dude and t-mobile fixed it and now its all better!  I went to the chiropractor in the morning and the nerve that was pinching my lower back has been loosened so no more pain or bulging disks-hooray!  I also went to Hobby Lobby in search of  a piece for a craft so I can finish it up........and wellllllll i can never go in there for just one thing and come out with just the ONE thing....its quite horrible really, but when you freaking SCORE how do you NOT walk out of that wonderful place without?!?!?!?!?!!? it is quite impossible, if you were wondering......in case you were also wondering I did some research and Hobby Lobby exists less than 15 miles from Birmingham! SCORE Joshua for picking a school near Hobby Lobby so that when I move I never have to be without!!!!! I knew I loved that boy :) just kidding......BUT seriously, I think I might have to die if I had to move to Birmingham and there was no Hobby Lobby, I mean its bad enough that the nearest IKEA is in like freaking Kentucky, which I know isn't super far away but it is not just downtown! and that my friends is unexceptable....on EVERY level. So anyway, lets just be happy about Hobby Lobby :) Today when I stopped in I super scored because I'm awesome :) well mostly it's because THEY (meaning the wonderful people of Hobby Lobby) are awesome and they were having a super mega sale on almost everything I have been looking at the last 5 times I've been there!  I have been a very good girl and I've been saving my money, but they seriously have some super cute things that I just need to have in my possession at some point, and today my patient waiting paid off, cause I didn't pay more than $5 for any of the things I have been eyeing :) I saved 40% and 50% on everything I bought today :) I even got a super awesome Christmas gift for my mother, who I know was eyeing it last time we were in the store but she never buys things unless they are on sale either-now you know where I get it :) Now the trick will be to keep her away til the sale is over so she can't go discover it herself and therefore kill the awesomeness of my gift shopping :) I love finding a wonderful bargain!  And because I know there was more there that I was eyeing and my mom mentioned something else about it today...I'm going back tomorrow to score again haha this time to find more Christmas gifts! Because gifts under $10 is a wonderful thing don't you know? and I'll be done before I ever hit the Christmas rush!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOO! I also have the dreaded task of  buying a new pair of workout shoes....yuckkkyyyy. Hopefully that will go better than I see it going in my head right now! Maybe I'll score big there too and find something wonderful that makes me want to workout all the time! Okay enough about bargain shopping! It's time for bed! And tomorrow I shall tell of the wonderful evening I had working Highland's Varsity Football game...just like old times, except way not....ha! Have a wonderful day!

xoxo,
Aly

My Love, The Stud

So anyone reading this blog obviously already knows that I love Joshua and that is pretty much enough of an explanation for this posting as far as I'm concerned!  My handsome man is the kicker for the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and I would say he does his job well.  Yesterday UAB played UT- for those of you non-footballers, that would be the University of Tennessee (yes they are a fairly large school, and yes you often see them on tv, but who cares?).  So my handsome man did not have such a good game yesterday, and has been pretty down because of it, which is natural of course, but I happen to strongly dislike it because I hate it when he's hurting and I can't fix it for him.  And after games like yesterday, I pretty much feel like I have the award for "terrible girlfriend of the year" because I am across the country and not available to cheer him up with a hug and a kiss. Mushy? Maybe, but hey, I love him!  Somedays I wish he truly new just how special he is, but it seems that words can never fully convey that message.  None of his teammates blame him for their loss, and his coaches still have incredible confidence in him.  And he has incredible support here at home from his friends and famil-oh and me :) I'll probably be in trouble for this at some point, but I am going to claim it anyway: I am and always will be Joshua Zahn's number one fan and supporter in everything he does-especially football cause I love it regardless of the outcome (though I do prefer to win, and I much prefer shut out games because they are less likely to give me a heart attack, which I'm sure is well on its way since I'm pretty sure my blood pressure rises to like 800 when I watch any game, especially those that JZ is participating in! Part of me prays that he will not one day choose the NFL just for fear that my poor little heart will explode :) )  Though I think he is probably not aware, I look up to and admire him SO very much.  He definitely has a courage and strength that I wish to someday possess.  Regardless of the toughness of a situation, he always finds a way to pull through it and come out better in the end.  He is his biggest critic, so I know that next week he will come back bigger, better and stronger and learn from the mistakes of last week.  I am so incredibly proud of him.  He works so hard to be the best he can be.  He is so selfless and incredibly loving.  Moreso than most people that I know, even when he really doesn't have to be-for example, with me, especially when I'm a butthead and cause more stress in his life than is necessary cause i'm being a dumbo!  He is definitely wise beyond his years-which sometimes I hate cause he points out things that I never think of and he makes me reevaluate them, but he's usually right (don't tell him I said that)!  He has an amazing since of humor and NEVER fails to make me laugh in a day.  He can make any situation positive, he can make any bad day better and best of all he loves me just for me, all my weirdness and faults and even the freckles on my nose (which I happen to loathe with the deepest part of my being).  Though I'm sure many other girls who have a man would claim they are the luckiest girls, I'm pretty sure that I have one this contest over so don't even bother trying to top me, cause I'm pretty sure I'll win regardless of what you might say!  I am definitely incredibly blessed to have been given the gift of Joshua in my life, I won't doubt that any day.  I don't quite know what I did to deserve such an amazing man to love me forever, but I am certainly not going to question the big man upstairs and his decision making! (partially for fear that maybe He'll check his records and say, "uh, actually i meant to send him to someone else that day" and rearrange history, which I'm pretty sure can never happen, but still.....not risking it!)  If you are ever reading this Joshua, I hope you know how much I truly love you with everything that I am.  Thank you for making my life so wonderful, for bringing smiles and laughter and showing me true, real, and unconditional love like I have never known before.  You are more than I deserve and better than anything I could have imagined happening in my life. :)
Now enough mushy lovey stuff cause I'm sure everyone is totally over it by now! :) smile a little smile today and tell someone you love them too!

xoxo,
Aly

p.s. Here's a picture of my stud in uniform, courtesy of al.com-for those of you who care, that's Birmingham's local newspaper website!

The Adventure Begins!

Hello everyone! I have decided to start a blog to document all of the crazy events that seem to occur in my everyday life! Hopefully this will be prove to be a source of enjoyment for you and for me as I share my thoughts and feelings and crazy stories! I don't know much about blogging yet, so bear with me as a learn to navigate this crazy thing! Technology and I generally do not agree, so at times I'm sure it will get interesting! Any hints or suggestions will be much appreciated at any time :)

xoxo
Aly